Airlines’ carry-on pledge not nearly enough

In response to Spirit Air’s announcement two weeks ago that it would start charging for roll-aboard-size carry-on luggage, five major airlines — American Airlines, Delta Airlines, JetBlue, United Airlines and US Airways — have pledged to not adopt the same charge.

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Baggage fees are such a great source of revenue for the airlines, what’s next?

Most travelers should have two responses to this:

1. “Big whoop.”

The public relations crap-storm that came down on Spirit fell in such a torrent that the airline is backpedaling hard enough to power one of their jets, claiming that it meant to lower fares an amount similar to the increased cost for the specific kinds of carry-on. Um, sure ya did.

So, considering the global (and possibly universal) negative response, having the airlines make this pledge is a little like rooting for the New Orleans Saints — two weeks after the Super Bowl. If the angry villagers just burned your neighbor at the stake for saying the world is round, it’s a pretty good bet that you and your friends are going to sign a pledge for Sen. Chuck Shumer that you’ll never say the planet is anything but flat.

2. “It’s not enough.”

Hooray. Airline officials vowed on their mother’s graves they won’t charge extra for carry-on luggage — which does nothing to prevent them from finding 50 other services or amenities to charge for. The music channels? Extra. The personal air vent? Extra. The reading light? Extra. In-flight movies? (Sorry, you’d have to pay me to watch most of those.) Could they charge extra for personal courtesy? Sure, lower flight attendant salaries so that, as with waiters, they expect gratuities at the end of the flight. Eventually, they would make the gratuity automatic and call it a service fee.

Don’t think they would do it? You obviously haven’t been on a cruise ship lately.

The pledge also doesn’t prevent the airlines from being passive aggressive: They won’t charge for large carry-on luggage, but they might shrink the size of what qualifies, forcing more passengers to check their bags. (Or they could decide to eliminate overhead bins, again forcing passengers to check anything that doesn’t fit under the seat.)

The problem is that extra fees have been so lucrative for the industry, in part because they don’t show up in the price when you search for a flight online, but also because the government taxes fares, but not all the extras. (Shumer and others are considering legislation that would close the loophole.)

Yes, few of these scenarios will ever come to pass, and I get that they’re probably never going to charge extra for the reading light. Although, think back a few years to when it seemed that having to pay extra to travel with anything more than the clothes on your back seemed, well, unimaginable.